Head of Strategic Expense Initiatives & Capabilities

Full-Time

Boston, MA, New York, NY or Springfield, MA

The Opportunity

We are looking for a Head of Strategic Expense Initiatives & Capabilities to be responsible for leading our expense organization and will have primary responsibility advance expense management initiatives, capabilities and policies – including 3rd party benchmarking interpretation and analysis of results driving key actions and alignment. This leader will also pioneer innovation including expansion of GBS capabilities and building out AI/Gen AI digital analyst functionalities. In addition, this leader with partner closely with Procurement and Strategic Priorities and delivery.

The ideal candidate will have experience in financial analysis and/or expense management as well as be fluent in life insurance, wealth management and annuity products. This individual should excel at working collaboratively and cross-functionally with both peers and leaders within and outside the finance function. Things move quickly and change quickly at MassMutual; this individual should be able to navigate ambiguity and mobilize teams and work at a nimble and fast pace. An ability to translate and distill complex financial issues into simple business context storylines while also providing the “so what.”

The position will lead a small team, and ensure it is proactive and highly customer-centric. Development is at the core of a learning culture. The position will need to help guide all team members through their development.

The team will need to research and drive education and adoption of expense benchmarking, partner with peers to establish and maintain unit cost frameworks to track and monitor progress. Manage the timing, accuracy and hands-on execution of deliverables. Ensure proper attribution of results with fact-based analysis guiding insights and decision support.

The Impact

The position is expected to:

• Drive alignment on YoY top-down expense guidance and support business and functional partners in delivering
• Design intuitive, actionable expense performance analysis to create transparency and surface savings opportunities (incl. an external lens / benchmarking)
  • Enhanced reporting and deep analytics around overall expenses, headcount, pricing gaps
  • New tools: HC scenario impacts, Global Business Solutions (GBS) net savings, scenario analysis around expense levers and pricing impacts – ongoing reporting & validation
  • Potential for category-specific councils (software, travel, HC, 3P contractors, management consulting, etc.)
  • Establish unit cost transparency on ‘run the business’ spend – prioritizing technology and operations areas and ongoing reporting
  • Partner with Actuarial to deepen understanding of pricing expense allowances vs. actuals and benchmarking gaps to create awareness and align ELT on multi-year aspiration and then surgical levers to achieve. Track and monitor delivery of multi-year aspiration.

• Partner, influence and align capabilities and processes with Strategic Planning & Delivery (SP&D), PMO and Procurement to increase transparency to improve economics and execution rigor
  • Build more robust and pro-active transparency to improve economics (connect business drivers to spend, 3rd party spend, portfolio execution and eventual benefit realization)
  • Transparency into funding capacity and alignment (improve T shirt size), CBA, execution health metrics and benefit realization (SPD & BAU programs) – linkage to forecast (spend and benefits)
  • Transparency into Procurement levers / options and drive strategic trade-off discussions w/ ELT/SLT in partnership with procurement. Create clear linkage to forecast (validate growth and savings vs. avoidance)

Pioneer innovation capabilities:

• Partner with colleagues to “Raise the bar” on robust and enhanced analytics to guide decision support (historical trends, correlations, enhanced transparency on BAU vs. outliers, etc.)
• Build Pilot Gen AI/agentic AI ad hoc analytics solution to support initial use case(s)
• Stand-up our Global Business Solutions (GBS) support team in India to support SEM (executive presentations and analysis for SLT/ELT reviews/recommendations)
• Assess technology tools and capabilities needs, design business requirements and secure funding

The Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in senior finance roles with proven ability to work across a heavily matrixed organization to lead and influence through ambiguity to mobilize teams and peers to deliver on key results. Tech forward leader with proven track record of implementing new and innovative technologies with strong communication, training and change management skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with ability to convey complex materials to all levels of the organization including senior executives and Board of Directors
• Demonstrated experience in implementing advanced forecasting / strategic planning techniques including activity based costing and zero-based budgeting
• Master’s or Bachelor’s degree in Business/Finance/Accounting or related discipline
• High degree of financial acumen
• Strong analytical skills; ability to analyze financial data sets and understand the “so what”
• Organized and detail-oriented; Ability to work well under pressure and manage multiple deliverables
• Proactive and self-motivated; anticipate upcoming client projects and deliverables
• Ability to think critically and demonstrate good judgment. Demonstrate experience with creative problem-solving
• Experience driving transformation efforts
• Ability to work through large data sets to understand key trends
• Innate desire to provide excellent service to clients
• MBA or CPA designation is a preference. Prior management consulting experience is also a preference.

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